It's Almost Like These Things are Connected
by Marathon Zack 140.6
Summary: Laurel notices a few strange coincidences and decides to ask Oliver about them. Loosely starting at the deleted scene from Episode 2 (S1). LAURIVER [Laurel x Oliver]
1. Chapter 1

His mother had finally accepted his decision not to join the company, and Oliver was standing alone in the living room, thankful that _that_ part of his task of being the Arrow was over — for a while, at least.

He heard a slight creak in the wood floor from the opposite direction his mother had left in, and looked up. He found Laurel casually leaning against the doorframe smirking at him slightly, looking like she'd been standing there for a while just waiting on him to finally notice her presence, before she spoke.

"So, Ollie… I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here or anything, but does it seem odd to anyone besides me that this new Hood fella pops up into existence at exactly the same time as you show back up from the dead? And just so happens to take an interest in the exact two people _I_ was in the process of trying to prosecute, plus by some amazing shear coincidence attacks the guy who sent people to attack me less than an hour after you just so happened to leave my apartment after saving my life by hearing something that I never could have heard?

"A conversation during which you strangely enough tell me you made plans on the island that didn't involve board meetings, which you oh so eloquently made sure would never happen with this afternoon's stunning performance. A complete load of bullshit, obviously, but an Oscar-worthy performance nonetheless.

"And then add on to that the fact that the second time I saw you, mere minutes after you looked at your phone and said someone didn't do something for you, and then less than subtly one-eighty changed tactics to push me away so you could disappear who knows where that wasn't back to the party, Adam Hunt got attacked by the Hood, who from what my dad told me, disappeared right into the building you were having your party in, where you just so happened to be again when my dad went storming in.

"Some mighty strange coincidences, don't you think, Ollie? I mean, it's almost like one could make some kind of a connection between all these random events."

"What are you implying, Laurel?" asked Oliver tiredly. It really had been a long day, and the last thing he wanted to have to deal with at the moment was Laurel nosing around in his secrets.

Laurel sauntered over to him slowly, before wrapping her arms around his neck, hands clasped together on the back of his neck.

"I don't know. Why don't _you_ tell me if I should be implying anything. Or if I've just completely lost my mind since my formerly-cheating, but does admittedly seemed to have changed, boyfriend showed back up from the dead."

"You think _I'm_ this masked vigilante?" asked Oliver with well-feigned disbelief. "He did save me too, remember?"

"Ah, yes. He saved you," replied Laurel in mock concession. "Except there's not a single person alive who actually saw any of it, what with all three kidnappers being dead and Tommy having been unconscious for the whole thing. And then there's the minor fact that not a single arrow was recovered at the scene, unlike all of the other attacks since then. So this vigilante just _happens_ to save a billionaire-recently-returned-from-the-dead, the only appearance of this vigilante during the day and the only kidnapping he's been involved with to date — and you able to give _such_ a perfect description of him. It's almost like your story of the sudden appearance of the Hood to save you should be in the running for best screenplay of the year, right up there with your speech from this afternoon."

Oliver simply looked back at her in silence, really not having anything to say that could help him.

After several seconds, Laurel dropped her hands and her expression and tone turned stern.

"I want to know everything. You've already ruined my life once and killed my sister by keeping secrets — you owe me this. Especially after your 'needing to open up to someone and realizing you hurt me by pushing me away' speech you gave me when you came over with ice cream last night."

By the time she finished, she was standing with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring at him hard; almost a glare, as if daring him to disobey her.

Oliver looked at her, internally debating with himself for several seconds, before finally settling on self-preservation. He didn't know what Laurel would do to him if he continued lying to her and kept denying he had any clue about the Hood, but he really didn't want to find out. She could be a force to be reckoned with when she was angry.

So sighing, he said, "Follow me," before turning and walking out of the room.

He led her out into the backyard, before walking around the house towards where Laurel's car was parked out front, never saying a word.

He finally broke the silence as they neared her car. "You have your keys?"

"Yeah, why?" asked Laurel, before adding cooly, "Because you're _supposed_ to be telling me something."

"I am, but I can't do that if Diggle is with us," replied Oliver, walking up to the passenger door of her car and opening it, looking across at her expectantly.

"Fine," grumbled Laurel in reply, opening her own door.

They were soon out on the open road, headed towards the city, when she asked, "So where am I going?"

"The old abandoned Queen Industry Factory," answered Oliver.

"An abandoned factory. Wow. And here I was hoping you _weren't_ going to kill me and dispose of my body where no one would ever find it," deadpanned Laurel.

"Ha ha," replied Oliver dryly, clearly less than amused by her sarcasm. "Where'd you expect a vigilante to hide out? The billionaire country club?"

"Ooh, look who's being sarcastic now," smirked Laurel. "Although, actually, wouldn't that be a pretty good place to hang out, considering that seems to be where most of the Hood's targets are?"

Oliver rolled his eyes. "First off, there is no billionaire country club, which you really should know from dating me for two years; and secondly, an even halfway smart vigilante wouldn't want to train right in front of the people he's going to be trying to take down."

"Okay, fair enough," replied Laurel, before adding a few seconds later in mock excitement, "To the abandoned factory we go, then!"

Oliver didn't even bother replying.

Pulling into the factory a while later, Oliver led her downstairs to his base. Grabbing his bow and throwing on his quiver, he threw three tennis balls in a single hard throw against the far cement wall, and quickly had them all pinned to the wall, arrow shafts still quivering.

Setting his bow and quiver back in their box, he turned to Laurel and said, "There. Happy?"

"Thrilled," deadpanned Laurel, before breaking out into a genuine smile and starting to walk along all his equipment and tools of the vigilante trade, checking everything out, looking very happy indeed.

"So these are the plans you made on the island that you can't do while attending board meetings," she said eventually, looking back over at Oliver, who'd followed her path around the room, but stayed several feet back to give her her space.

"Basically," replied Oliver. "There's a lot I suppose I'll have to tell you now about the island, but even before all that, after the yacht went down and we were floating in the ocean, my dad tasked me with cleaning up this city. Which is what the Hood, as your dad has so eloquently named him, is trying to do."

"Starting with the people I'm simultaneously trying to take down in court."

Oliver wasn't sure if she was thanking him or complaining that he wasn't letting her do her job.

"I had to start somewhere, and the two people I've known you were going after since I got back were on the list, so I made sure they received justice. I know you believe in the law, but these kinds of people can't be taken down by the law alone. And I suppose you could call it trying to get back into your good graces some, even though you were never actually supposed to know I was the Hood, so I'm not exactly sure how that was supposed to work."

"I wasn't complaining, Ollie," replied Laurel softly, walking up to him and resting a hand lightly on his chest, smiling up at him softly. "I just so happen to be a tiny bit of a fan of this hooded vigilante. But seriously, thank you for helping me bring them to justice, even if it's contrary to the way my dad taught me to do it."

And with that she leaned up and ever so lightly pressed her lips against his, pulling back before he even had time to realize what was happening, dropping her hand and taking a small step back.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"That was for not lying to me anymore, and finally telling me everything, or at least enough of it to start with," replied Laurel to his unasked question.

She then turned and sauntered over to the stairs leading back up to the outside world, her hips tantalizingly swaying just ever so slightly as she walked, and smirked over her shoulder, "And just for future reference, the less time you wait to tell me the truth, and the less I have to drag it out of you by figuring it out on my own and then pinning you in a corner, the longer the kiss will be."

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**A/N: At least one more chapter is coming. Maybe more, but don't get your hopes too high or I'll probably let you down. I'll try to keep writing on this some, but I'll make sure to end each chapter at a place where the story could finish, so if I don't ever add more, it won't just be abandoned mid-story. So follow at your own peril, but there won't really be any peril.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: The best way I can describe the genre of this story (or at least this chapter) is to say that it's kind of like my brain just vomited all over the page, and then I published it as is for your reading pleasure. To me at least, it seems like it bounces from silly to sass to cute to serious to just off the wall to weird headcanon to fluff and back again at what may be a dizzying and disjointed pace. Just a warning before you wonder why it seems all over the place as you wander through the story.**

**Also, if anything directly violates canon, it didn't in the first five episodes, which is all I've actually watched, or else I just like my way better and it's intentional. And this isn't intended to be held captive by canons anyway. If you're looking for canons, go buy a pirate ship.**

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_Laurel turned and started sauntering over to the stairs leading back up to the outside world, her hips tantalizingly swaying just ever so slightly, smirking over her shoulder, "And just for future reference, the less time you wait to tell me the truth, and the less I have to drag it out of you by figuring it out on my own and then pinning you in a corner, the longer the kiss will be."_

Oliver groaned to himself, before quickly hurrying after her, not entirely sure she wouldn't just leave him there to fend for himself.

Not that he wasn't obviously capable of it, but it was still too far for him to get back to the Castle by himself, and he'd rather have a more reasonable location to call Digs from that would involve less questions (or at least questioning remarks); somewhere like Laurel's apartment, in fact, if she'd give him a lift there, assuming that's where she was going.

He caught up with her halfway up the stairs, and they walked beside each other to her car, neither finding it necessary to fill the air with idle chatter.

Opening her car door, she asked, "Do you need to get back to the Castle, or do you have some time you can spare?"

"I'm free."

"Good. Come on."

They had just pulled out of the abandoned Queen factory and onto the main road when Laurel glanced over at Oliver and asked, "Still like your pizza?"

"Haven't had it since I got back, but yeah, I assume so," replied Oliver. "They still have it, though? I thought they might have gotten rid of it after I killed your sister."

"Most of the city isn't particularly aware that you were screwing my sister while dating me, and you were a billionaire anyway so those that _did_ know didn't really care, and you dying just made your pizza more popular than ever," answered Laurel, before handing him her phone and saying, "They have an app. Just go to 'recent orders' and hit 'order'."

Oliver did as she said. Opening 'recent orders', he found only one order there — the large, chicken, sausage, and spinach pizza that they'd always gotten together back when they were dating, that the pizza place had eventually named "The Queen" since it was what Oliver (and other members of the Queen family) always got when they ordered from there (they might have been billionaires, but even billionaires, and especially pre-teen and college-aged billionaires, still liked pizza).

Hitting the order button, he looked back over at her and said, "Okay, I'm surprised _you_ kept ordering my pizza, and apparently _only_ my pizza, since that's the only recent order on your phone."

"It might have only been _your_ name on the pizza, but _I_ liked it as much as you did. And apparently since I was your girlfriend, they kept giving it to me for free even after you died, and I _assume_ charging your family for it, which right afterwards felt like a really nice, albeit really _small_ vengeance. And then later on, after I stopped hating you so much, I wasn't exactly about to complain about it, even if I did occasionally feel a _little_ guilty about it, because I still felt like you owed me at least that much, and it was just pizza — I didn't eat it that often, and I seriously doubted your family could even tell if they did look. So as much as I might have hated you, I wasn't exactly about to turn down free food."

"Or an apartment, apparently," smirked Oliver, continuing to look at her — she was far more interesting to look at than whatever neighborhoods they were currently passing through on the way to her apartment; in his mind at least.

Laurel rolled her eyes. "College kid with an apartment in the city _waaay_ above my budget — it didn't matter _how_ much I hated you, I wasn't about to give that up."

"It's your name on the deed, though, isn't it?" asked Oliver seriously. "Much to your dad's disapproval at the time if I remember correctly. You could have sold it and bought something different. I mean, I'm glad you didn't, but you could have."

"Okay, let me rephrase that. Apartment way above my budget with all utilities and taxes paid for — and by the Queens no less, which means all top of the line and fixed instantly if anything breaks. The utilities agreement even includes new appliances if any of them break, which since it was all brand new six years ago, none of them have yet. If I did sell it, I doubt I'd've gotten the same deal wherever I moved to. Also, your name was on the deed too, so I was never entirely sure how that would work."

Oliver chuckled. "Okay, okay, touché. But to be honest, if you'd just asked my mom, I'm sure she would have set up the same deal for you had you wanted to move somewhere else — she always liked you, and after what I did, I'm sure she would have given you anything you asked for. As for the deed, since I was dead, it should have entirely been yours — I presume, at least. But aren't you a lawyer? Shouldn't you actually know that?"

"I never took billionaire law — the normal rules and laws never apply to you people," retorted Laurel playfully. "But seriously — I never felt a strong desire to move out, so I never bothered actually looking into it. And I don't want to move now, I really like the apartment. But do you really think your mom would have paid all the taxes, utilities, and appliances on a new place if I'd sold this one and bought somewhere different?"

"Yes, I do," replied Oliver. "You were basically family by that point, even if that's ironically enough basically why I cheated on you. And like I said before, she would have felt like she owed you that much."

By this point they'd arrived at her building and walked up to Laurel's apartment. A few minutes later, there was a knock on her door, and Laurel opened it to get their pizza. Returning to the couch they dove in, and as they ate, she asked him all about his Arrow-ing adventures against Adam Hunt, and Martin Somers, and the others the Hood had "persuaded" to better their ways.

Once they had finished eating and talking, Laurel leaned into Oliver's side, and rested her head on his shoulder. Oliver wrapped his arm around her shoulder, holding her close.

After a while he said, "You've been oddly friendly to me since last night. What gives?"

"_Last night_ I was attacked by two gunmen and a ninja lady — forgive me for clinging to the person who saved my life and I just _might_ possibly have a past with," snarked Laurel sassily, before continuing in a more flirty tone, "But as for tonight, I _did_ promise I'd reward you for telling me the truth without me having to drag it out of you."

"I thought you said you were going to kiss me for longer the quicker I told you things," said Oliver in guileless confusion, trying to think back over exactly what she'd told him at the factory.

"Oh, are you asking for a kiss?" replied Laurel sultrily. "I suppose I could oblige. A promise is a promise, after all."

And with that she swung herself onto his lap, and before Oliver could even try to process what was going on, her lips were crashing down on his. At which point Oliver decided to screw trying to process anything, and just go with it.

A while later, though, Oliver suddenly realized through the pleasant haze his brain was currently in that he was now lying flat on his back on the couch, and his (_ex_-, he had to remind himself) girlfriend was laying on top of him, kissing her way from his ear down his throat. His own hands were roaming up and down her back and sides under her shirt, causing her shirt to ride halfway up her back.

So before things could get too far out of hand (like they weren't already), Oliver moved his hands to her shoulders and gently pushed her away from his neck so that he could look at her directly. As much as he was enjoying this, he needed to know what exactly Laurel's intentions were with all this. Because last time he'd checked she was still quite pissed at him, and the very night before it'd seemed like she'd just barely acquiesced to even letting him into her apartment.

"Laurel, what is this?" he asked softly, but firmly. "Because I can't do a one night thing with you. I've never been able to with _you_, and the part of me that could with any girl went down with the yacht."

"Oh, we aren't going _that_ far tonight, Ollie dearest," Laurel chuckled. "Although...you _are_ welcome to spend the night if you like — but we're not going that far in the morning, either," she finished warningly.

But Oliver simply gave her a look — he wasn't going to let it go without an actual answer to his question.

Sighing, Laurel pushed herself up using his chest, straddling his hips and looking down at him seriously.

"I _hope_ it's the beginning of us being back together. I suppose that's mostly going to hinge on you continuing to tell me everything, at least on current things, and beginning to fill me in on the island and anything else I need to know, but some crazy part of me still wants _us_ to work out.

"We had a _minor_ hiccup in our relationship, what with you screwing my sister and then dying with her, but after this afternoon, I think maybe we're at a place where we can get back on track. We've certainly still had our issues since you returned, but you really have changed, and most of those issues seem to be from you trying to keep me from discovering your secret, so they are at least explainable. And I still like you even if I shouldn't, and I think you still like me.

"So while I wouldn't go so far as to say this is anything yet, that _we're_ anything yet, it's not one night. At least, I don't want it to be."

Oliver nodded. "Okay. I can go with that."

"So can I get back to making out with you now?" asked Laurel with a cheeky grin.

Oliver rolled his eyes, and instead of bothering with an answer, simply pulled her lips back down to his. But Laurel seemed to take it as a more than satisfactory answer, as she began enthusiastically attempting to replace his tongue with hers.


End file.
